Charlie Stross, an author of science fiction among other things, wrote an article in response to an SF Signal discussion of the question:
“Are SF writers “slacking off” or is science fiction still the genre of “big ideas”? If so, what authors are supplying these ideas for the next generation of scientists and engineers?”
And so he wrote this article: SF, big ideas, ideology: what is to be done? by By Charlie Stross
He discusses the history of science fiction as well as a few other topics. Let me quote one paragraph:
The second assumption is that science fiction has primarily been a genre of big ideas. I’m not at all sure that this is the case. Certainly fiction with big ideas has found a home within SF, but that’s not the same thing at all! For almost all of its history, most SF has been pulp adventure fiction, conceived and written as escapism — lest we forget, Damon Knight’s original characterisation of space opera as horse opera (the Western) with blasters instead of six-guns and space ships instead of horses still holds water. The big ideas are, if anything, secondary, not to mention exhibiting a tendency to date badly and carry sinister ideological overtones (as William Gibson so brilliantly skewered in his short story “The Gernsback Continuum”).
The entire article is well worth reading.
Source
I'm going to make this topic a little less exciting and creative by referencing a New Yorker article about Peter Thiel that was published in November.
Something about the article struck me. "Big ideas" are dead. There hasn't been some all encompassing excitement about our future for what seems like a very long time. I would argue that part of that has to do with the partisanship of our politics - it's hard for President Obama or leaders in Congress to propose smart, grand ideas because it's just likely that the other side will immediately work to break it down.
For me, I find the growth of private space exploration (and asteroid mining) to be very exciting. Not because it's privatized per se, but because there seems to be a lot of room for neat innovations.
